Can smiling make you live longer?

June 09, 2011

People with big smiles may actually live longer than those who don’t, according to a 2010 study at Michigan’s Wayne State University. The team at Duffin, Adams and Gimlen Orthodontics have known for quite some time that positive emotion has been linked to both physical and mental health, but researchers at the university did something quite interesting: they looked at photos of 230 ball-players who began their careers in baseball prior to 1950 and studied their smile intensity (ranging from big smile, no smile or partial smile).